Exhaustive analysis of the levels of expression of a large number of genes or transcription products thereof makes it possible to find genes whose expression levels change in relation to certain diseases, and therefore has been expected to be applicable to determining the presence of such diseases. Therefore, many studies have been carried out on methods of determining whether or not a subject has a certain disease based on such exhaustive analysis data.
However, exhaustive analysis of the levels of expression of genes or transcription products thereof has a problem in which detection of a large number of false-positive genes, error in the measurement system, or poor reproducibility of gene expression makes it difficult to extract genes that show a truly significant change in expression level.
To solve such a problem, various statistical techniques for analytical data have been studied and developed.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2005-323573 discloses a method of determining whether there is a significant difference in gene expression between two different conditions by multivariate analysis of data on gene expression levels obtained from a DNA microarray.
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2009/0297494 discloses a method of diagnosing mental disorders based on the levels of expression of genes involved in regulation of intracellular glutathione level.